The story I was told about Maniek is that at the beginning of World War II, when he was in Russia (perhaps Minsk *) he got a job in a factory. And he was competent (and, knowing him, probably well-liked), so he kept getting promoted. However, promotion was a dangerous thing, because Stalin was afraid of anyone with leadership potential, and there was a tendency for managers to get sent to Siberia. (Perhaps especially Polish-Jewish managers?) So Maniek volunteered for the Russian Army, thinking they would not take him away from combat duty to work in a factory. However, that proved to be a false assumption. The factory yanked him back, and once again he was in a perilous position. So he volunteered for the Russian Army again, but this time as a motorcycle mine-sweeper! He felt that was safer than being in management! And perhaps he was correct, since he did survive the war, coming to Canada in 1948. (Maniek’s daughter, Guela, wrote in an email, “I actually have pics of him with the Russian army in Berlin post-war”.)

She also says:

“My dad was born in 1905 and is Adek and Stefan’s generation. He didn’t marry and have children until after WWII when he met my mom in NYC through his sister Madzia Solowiejczyk. (Both my mom and his sister were physicians interning at Bellevue Hospital.) So my brother Henry and I were born when my father was about 50.”

I also vaguely remember being at Henry Hurwicz‘s house in Palos Verdes Estates (near Los Angeles), where there was a swimming pool in the back yard, and Maniek jumping out of a second story window into the pool. “He was a bit of a wild man.”